#225 : miR-135b Expression Correlated with Aneuploidy in Trophectoderm from IVF Patients: An Approach to NIR-Invasive Screening for Embryo Quality Assessment

Abstract

Background and Aims: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are abundantly expressed in rapidly growing and undifferentiated cells, for example, embryonic stem cells. This led to the discovery that miRNAs are significantly expressed in human embryos and that intracellular miRNAs expression patterns differ between euploidy and aneuploid embryos. Our study aims to determine the correlation between miR-35b and embryo chromosomal status. Methods: Thirty-six blastocyst culture media were collected from patients who underwent the In Vito Fertilization (IVF) program followed by Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy (PGT-A) at Dr. Ciptomangunkusumo General Hospital, Jakarta. The trophectoderm cells were biopsied, and half of the spent media culture was evaluated for aneuploidy detection using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). While the rest of the spent media on day five were analyzed for miR-135b expression using quantitative Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR). All the data were analyzed using SPSS, and the sensitivity and specificity of the miR-135b were analyzed using the ROC curve. Results: miR-135b relative expression was detected in blastocyst spent blastocyst media culture and not in culture media without embryo. Based on the average of miR-135b, expression was higher in aneuploidy embryos (7.9(0.01-1-45.57)) than embryos with no aneuploidy detected (0.7(0.003-9.65)) and statistically different with p¡0.05. miR-135 relative expression in spent culture media was 10.72-fold higher in aneuploidy compared with an embryo with a normal chromosome. Based on the validation, the sensitivity value was 71.4%, and the specificity was 68.2%, with a cut-off of the relative expression of miR-135b was 1.185-fold. Conclusion: miR-135b detected in IVF spent culture media from blastocyst media culture. The significant expression of miR-135b in an aneuploidy embryo makes miR-135b a potential biomarker for predicting the chromosomal quality of blastocyst embryos.